Africa

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Rahti Begum a fisherwoman sells fish on a roadside in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir state in India. She says she will be the last woman in her clan to do to sell fish. Credit: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS

By Umar Manzoor Shah
SRINAGAR, India, Oct 25 2018 (IPS)

Much has changed since Rahti Begum, a fisherwoman in Kashmir, now in her late 60s, first began wandering the streets with a bucketful of fish on her head. She was 17 when her father roped her into the business that became the source of her livelihood for the remainder of her life.

Living in a houseboat on Dal Lake, one of Kashmir’s famed water bodies, Rahti says catching fish and selling it to people has been the sole source of income of her family for centuries.

“Even when I was a child, I knew I was going to sell fish. Every one in our family does that. The lake on which we live was been fulfilling all our needs,” she says. 

Her family belong to a tribe in Kashmir called ‘Hanjis’ who live in houseboats and eke out a living from the lakes and rivers the region had in abundance. A majority of the members of the tribe are involved in tourism as they take tourists in the lavishly decorated boats called ‘Shikaras’ to explore the beauties of the rivers and lakes.

Others amongst the tribe catch fish and sell it directly to the public. Rahti belongs to the latter group. The men during the early hours of the morning cast nets into the lake, catch fish and pass on the stock to their women who sell it by roaming around in different areas.

“When my father asked me join him, I was reluctant to say yes but there wasn’t anything else through which we could have earned a living. Gradually, selling fish became an integral part of my life and hence the family legacy continued,” she tells IPS. 

However Rahti, now afflicted with ailments that come with old age, is confident that she is going to be the last woman in her tribe to sell fish.

“My death will end the legacy for ever. No one wants to do this business again as the lake has all of a sudden turned monstrous for us; it is becoming a cesspool and fishes underneath its belly are vanishing with each passing day,” Rahti explains. 

Fish production and agricultural activities in this Himalayan region contribute 23 percent of GDP and are the mainstay of the economy.

According to a study conducted by researchers Neha W Qureshi and M Krishnan, the total fish production in Dal Lake registered a negative compound growth rate (CGR) of -0.34 percent for the period 1980-1990. But for the period 2000-2010, fish production in Dal Lake showed a negative compound growth rate of -2.89 percent. Wullar Lake showed a negative compound growth rate of -8.78 percent from 2000-2011

The study blames the decline in numbers on the negative externalities of tourism, excessive fertilisation of vegetable crops on floating gardens that lead to algal blooms, and the spike in pollution due to the dumping of waste in both lakes.

These have all led to a consistent decline and destruction of the breeding grounds of the local fish species schizothorax.

Furthermore, the consumption of fish has outnumbered actual fish production in the region.

While the annual consumption is 25,000 tons of fish, production stands at 20,000 tons per year in both lakes combined. Of this, Dal Lake produces no more than 5,000 tons a year. 

Rahti, who now struggles to earn enough for one full meal a day, says she vividly remembers the times when during her childhood, fish under the diamond-like transparency of the lake used to swim in shoals and flocks of ducks with emerald necks used to swim on the surface.

“Those were the days when we used to earn a decent livelihood and the lake produced no less than 15 thousand tons of fish every year. It is now a thing of a past,” she rues. 

Rahti, who has two daughters and a son, says the reason that her children wouldn’t go into the business of selling fish is the dreadful decline in fish production in the lake. Her daughters are homemakers and her son has a job at a local grocery store. Her earnings, Rahti says, have declined from 500 dollars a month to a mere 100 dollars a month at present.

“There isn’t enough produce that I could sell and with merge income in hand, why would I push my children to the precipice of a disastrous living?” Rahti tells IPS. 

Another fisherwoman, Jana Begum, has similar fears. In her 50s now, Jana says her only concern is how the family would survive if the situation were to remain the same.

“Our sole income is selling fish. My husband, a fisherman catches fish and I sell it. We have been doing this for 30 years but it looks like the difficult times have begun to dominate poor people like us,” Jana tells IPS. 

She says almost every day, her husband returns home with empty nets and a glum face as there aren’t any fish left to be caught in Wullar Lake — another famous water body located in the north of Kashmir.

“Why would my daughters do this business? What is left for them to earn. With us, the profession shall end and we are already long dead,” says Jana. 

According to a study by Imtiaz Ahmed, Zubair Ahmad and Ishtiyaq Ahmad, Department of Zoology, University of Kashmir, the main reasons for the depletion of fishery resources in these water bodies are over-fishing and encroachment.

It suggested that the entry of domestic sewage, solid wastes and agricultural wastes into these water bodies needs to be controlled and properly managed.

“Also aquatic weeds present in these aquatic ecosystems must be  cultivated and  should be  properly utilised because  of its  high  nutritional  values  and  economic  values. A separate  authority  needs  to  be  established  to  monitor the physico-chemical and biological characteristics of Dal Lake.” 

The director of the Department of Fisheries, Ram Nath Pandita, gives similar reasons for the decline in fish production in Kashmir’s lakes and rivers, attributing it to increasing pollution and encroachment.

He says because of the dumping of waste in water bodies, fish larvae do not grow into fry, resulting in the decline.

Pandita tells IPS that in order to address the decline in fish production, the government is supplying larvae to the water bodies and is continuously monitoring the process.

“The government is keeping closer watch on the entire process of increasing the fish production in Kashmir’s lakes and besides increasing the supply of larvae, it is also ensuring that no illegal fishing is allowed,” Pandita says.

He added that due to the massive floods that occurred in Kashmir in 2014, a large quantity of silt and sewage accumulated in the lakes, affecting fish production directly.

Pandita said awareness campaigns are being carried out about the importance of keeping the water bodies clean and not dumping household solid and liquid wastes in them.

“There are even seminars and road shows being conducted by the government in which people from cross sections of the society are educated that the fish can turn poisonous and will extinguish if water bodies aren’t protected through the unanimous efforts of the people and the government,” Pandita tells IPS. 

The government in February banned any illegal fishing in Kashmir’s water bodies and claims that the law will help curb the decline in fish production and help secure the livelihood of people involved in the sector.

Under the new law, only those permitted by the government can fish in the water bodies and any one found violating the norm shall be liable to three months of imprisonment and a fine of 500 Indian Rupees (about 90 dollars.)

The Department of Lakes and Water Ways development authority – a government department tasked with the protection of lakes in Kashmir – reports that various plans are underway to save Dal Lake and various species that live in it.

The department is uprooting water lilies with traditional methods and is de-weeding the lake with the latest machinery so that the surface of the lake is freed from weeds and fish production will rebound.

However, according to a study by Humaira Qadri and A. R. Yousuf from the Department of Environmental Science, University of Kashmir, despite the government spending about USD170 million on the conservation of the lake so far, there is no visible improvement in its condition.

“A lack of proper management and restoration plan and the incidence of engineered but ecologically unsound management practices have led to a failure in the conservation efforts,” says the study.

It concluded that the lake is moving towards its definite end and that conservation efforts have proved to be a total failure. It adds that official apathy and failure to take the problems seriously on the part of the managing authorities have deteriorated the overall condition of the lake.

The study says a united effort is needed by the government as well as the people so that instead of turning the water bodies into waste dumping sites, they are saved for the greater common good of Kashmir.

But Pandita is optimistic that the lakes can be restored to their past glory. Though, he admitted, that due to the high level of pollution in the lakes, it is feared that they may turn into cesspools. However, he said the government was working to combat this through various methods, which included awareness campaigns and lake clean-up drives.

But among the uneducated communities living around the lakes, many do not understand the measures taken by the government. When IPS spoke to local community members, all they talked about were the lack of fish. They were unaware about whether the government’s efforts will bring about any change in the lake.

As IPS asked fisher-person Jum Dar whether the government’s measures were bringing any positive change, Dar said he has seen many government agencies taking water samples for research from the lake and but there hadn’t been any visible change. His livelihood, he says, continues to remain in danger.

As IPS spent an entire day with Dar, and he only caught two fish which weighed no more than half a kilogram.

“See yourself the hard times we encounter everyday. How could we survive when such a catastrophe has engulfed our lives?”

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The post Kashmir’s Fisherwomen Live Between Hope and Despair appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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By David Kode
JOHANNESBURG, Oct 25 2018 (IPS)

For many African activists based on the continent, getting to a major human rights summit just underway in The Gambia is likely to have been a challenging exercise. The journey by air from many African countries to the capital, Banjul, for the 63rd Session of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR), could have been prohibitively expensive, involved transiting through multiple cities and taken days.

And if the African Union (AU) has its way, getting the host institution – Africa’s main human rights body – to respond to their grievances of rights violations, as it has done for years, is going to be equally challenging for them. Recent moves by the AU to curtail the Commission’s independence could ultimately leave African activists and citizens without a vital and often rare structure where human rights abuses committed against them are addressed.

The ACHPR, whose sessions represent the largest gatherings of civil society in Africa, was established more than 30 years ago in Ethiopia by the AU’s predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). Its mandate was to protect and promote people’s and human rights throughout the continent, as well as its founding treaty, the African Charter.

Over the years, the Commission has provided a precious space for civil society representatives from nations such as Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Ethiopia – countries where the space for civil society has been closed – to air human rights grievances and see action taken. Indeed, for activists from a country like Eritrea, in which no independent human rights groups are allowed to operate, this body provides presents a unique platform to let the world know about the abuses Eritreans face and to call for solidarity and action, backed by the Commission. Today, the independence that enabled the ACHPR to pass binding resolutions on rights violations is being consistently eroded by the AU.

Evidence of this can be seen in a recent AU Executive Council decision that the Commission has a “functional nature” and is not independent from the structures that created it. The statement goes further to caution the Commission against acting as an “appellate body” that undermines national legal systems. The Commission, however, was created by and gets its authority from the African Charter and the fact that its commissioners serve in their individual capacity and not as country representatives suggests the objective of the Commission to carry out independent investigations into human rights violations independent of states.

While the AU has remained silent on countless instances of governments’ gross violations of people’s rights, the African Commission has spoken out publicly in its capacity as a quasi-judicial body, condemning these abuses and calling on states to address them.

Another AU Executive Council decision instructed the ACHPR to withdraw its accreditation of the Coalition of African Lesbians (CAL) by the end of the year – a move that would deny this prominent LGBTI rights group access to the Commission. This resolution clearly undermines the Commission’s independence and could set a precedent for excluding other organisations during crucial human rights work.

The Commission has made some significant judgements such as one passed last year in a case brought by the indigenous Endorois community in Kenya against the Kenyan government. The ACHPR ruled that the government had violated provisions of the African Charter and that it recognise the community’s right of ownership of their land and restitute it. In another landmark case a few months later, the Commission ruled that the DRC pay US $2.5million to the victims and families of those massacred in the southeastern town of Kilwa in 2004. While these judgments are not enforceable, they represent big wins for civil society and communities that are often disappointed by national judicial processes.

The threats to the ACHPR’s independence resonate with a worrying trend on the continent where states work to erode the powers of regional and international human rights mechanisms, leaving citizens vulnerable to abuses with no recourse to justice. In 2016, Burundi, The Gambia and South Africa notified the International Criminal Court (ICC) of their intention to withdraw from the body and the Rome Statute. Other countries such as Kenya and Uganda have at threatened to also leave, citing a bias by the court against African leaders.

The AU also called for a mass pull out of African states and discussed the idea of a collective withdrawal by the continental body. Of the three countries that notified the ICC of their intention to leave, Burundi became was the first and only country to do so, a year ago. Many African states contested the AU’s proposed “withdrawal strategy” while Gambia re-joined the court after a change of government. South Africa put its pull-out plans “on hold” after a South African High Court ruled that a notice of withdrawal without parliament’s approval was unconstitutional.

We saw the trend of states undermining judicial bodies emerge again when, in 2011, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) resolved to suspend all operations of one of its key institutions, the SADC Tribunal. SADC heads of state followed this up three years later with the adoption of a protocol limiting the Tribunal’s jurisdiction to inter-state disputes. This decision dealt a major blow to states’ accountability, particularly since the independence of the judiciary in most African countries is compromised and courts are controlled by the executive, leaving citizens with no recourse to seek justice for violations, especially when states are the main perpetrators.

The campaign by African states to undermine key regional and international human rights mechanisms have been in response to attempts by these structures to hold them and their leaders accountable. The ACHPR requires individuals and organisations to bring cases before it after exhausting all national legal avenues. Other regional human rights systems are either inaccessible, inefficient or compromised. As the judiciary in many African countries increasingly succumb to pressure from the executive, national courts fail citizens miserably leaving them with no choice but to approach take the African Commission.

The AU’s curtailing of the Commission’s independence, SADC’s the suspension of its Tribunal and African states’ rejection of the Rome Statute and the ICC all contribute to an environment in which citizens are left vulnerable to human rights violations and crimes against humanity, and victims and survivors are denied access to justice.

If African leaders succeed in stripping the ACHPR of its independence and authority, African people will effectively lose yet another valuable institution to the rising tide of repressive and restrictive governance, keeping many vulnerable to a cycle of human rights violations, with no recourse for justice or even a hearing.

The post African Union Makes Moves to Neutralise Africa’s Main Human Rights Body appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

David Kode is the Advocacy and Campaigns lead with global civil society alliance, CIVICUS.

The post African Union Makes Moves to Neutralise Africa’s Main Human Rights Body appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Just six nations gain five places or more in October's Fifa rankings, five of them from Africa - Egypt, Madagascar, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Burundi.

By WAM
DUBAI, Oct 25 2018 (WAM)

The 5th World Green Economy Summit (WGES), held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, concluded today. The summit, held under the theme ‘Driving Innovation, Leading Change’ brought together many prominent speakers from across the globe, in addition to dignitaries and representatives from government organisations, academicians, experts and the media.

Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, Vice Chairman of the Dubai Supreme Council of Energy, Managing Director and CEO of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), and Chairman of WGES, announced the Dubai Declaration 2018 at the conclusion of WGES 2018, expressing his gratitude and appreciation to His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, for his patronage of the Summit. He also thanked H.H. Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, for his presence at the opening ceremony of the summit.

Al Tayer said: “Since its inception in 2014, the summit has made great progress and many achievements, notably due to increased cooperation between decision-makers from the public and private sectors. Over 3,700 participants consisting of global experts, thought leaders and business leaders in green economy and sustainable development, have participated in WGES 2018 to discuss key issues such as climate change and global warming.”

“This summit is especially important, because it has set the journey towards the adoption and signature of the agreement establishing the World Green Economy Organisation (WGEO). We sincerely hope that we can count many of your countries amongst the original members of WGEO, who have a very important role in shaping its future,” Al Tayer added.

He further said, “We are concerned by the report recently released by the IPCC defining a stringent scenario for the world to achieve the 1.5 degrees target. Nonetheless we are optimistic, as we know that it can be achieved by harvesting the capabilities of the private sector to make their industries and sectors green. This is why we are here, to form and focus an engine of green transformation built on diversity and entrepreneurship.”

Speaking about the summit’s pillars, Al Tayer said, “WGES 2018 focused on three main pillars including ‘Green Capital’, which has been a focus of discussions at this year’s Summit. This comes at a time when the World Green Economy Organisation (WGEO) and the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), signed in October 2018 a partnership agreement in Dubai to fast-track green investments into bankable smart city projects.”

“One of Dubai’s major green projects is the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park. This is the largest single-site solar park in the world. Based on the Independent Power Producer model, it will have a capacity of 5,000MW by 2030. This includes the world’s largest single-site Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) project with a capacity of 700MW,” Al Tayer highlighted.

WAM/Hatem Mohamed/Tariq alfaham

The post World Green Economy Summit 2018 concludes appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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By Abdoulaye Mar Dieye
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 25 2018 (IPS)

As the old adage goes: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. Nowhere is this more appropriate than when it comes to conflict. Violent conflict causes not only human suffering and destruction but robs entire societies of development and growth.

By some estimates, a country that suffers a four-year civil war loses nearly 20% of its GDP per capita. Syria has lost 19-36% of its productive capacity by 2016 due to conflict, its economy producing 20-38 billion USD less in value each year.

What is more, secondary effects of conflicts have no borders, affecting economies all over the world. For example, it is estimated that the conflict in Somalia and piracy attacks in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean led to an increase in shipping costs of about 10%.

Moreover, because conflict tends to disproportionally affect low- and middle-income countries it compounds the challenge of development – once conflict starts, development slows down or ends. Ending conflict not only ends human suffering — a worthy goal in and of itself – but leads to significant economic benefits as well.

Preventing conflict from starting, on the other hand, would magnify those benefits immeasurably. Even after the end of conflict, countries need years, if not decades, to recover. Along with rebuilding shattered societies and infrastructure, countries have to rebuild confidence in their economic systems and attract investment.

The UN Secretary-General recognized this immense potential in his “Peacebuilding and sustaining peace” report, where he called for “prevention of conflict and addressing its root causes”.

It is also the key conclusion of the “Pathway for Peace”, a joint UN and World Bank study, and has been identified by the European Union (EU) in the “Pre-emptive Peace” section of the EU’s Global Strategy, which states that the EU will “redouble our efforts on prevention, [and] monitoring root causes” of conflict.

We do not have the blueprint for preventing conflict. We do, however, have years of experience in attempting to do so, and one of the key lessons we learned is a clear and firm link between strong democratic foundations and resilience.

Countries with institutions such as inclusive and empowered parliaments, free media and robust civil society sector are less likely to experience conflict, and even if they do, they tend to recover much quicker.

We also know that an essential building block of a strong democratic system is inclusive and transparent elections, giving citizens a voice and making leaders accountable to their people. At the same time, elections can also be a trigger (although seldom the cause) of conflict, often serving as a catalyst for long-simmering grievances.

Prevention of electoral conflict was a topic of a recent high-level conference in Brussels, organized by the EC-UNDP Joint Task Force on Electoral Assistance (JTF) and attended by over 200 practitioners from over 60 countries and is a focus of a joint EU-UNDP study and toolkit on “Sustaining Peace through Elections”.

While the study found that there is “no blueprint for preventing electoral violence”, it clearly identified a common thread – support to strong democratic institutions and social values is an essential component of any conflict-prevention strategy.

Building democratic institutions and reinforcing social values capable of withstanding potential shocks of electoral violence requires sustained support, well before and well after the elections. Attempts to address electoral conflict in the weeks or even months leading up to an election is, in most cases, too little, too late.

To change this paradigm, we need to rethink the way we offer electoral assistance. Acknowledging that no single political or technical solution is sufficient, the conference presented to participants a “Democracy Strengthening” approach.

Such strategy attempts to view assistance through a wide-angle lens, to include all the stakeholders in a comprehensive, long-term vision from the very start of our involvement.

Too often, we initiate our assistance driven by short-term focus on an electoral event or a single electoral cycle, only to keep extending and adding on project after project, without a comprehensive strategy.

Instead, we should embrace a long-term view from the start and design our assistance with a goal of not simply holding a better election or having a more competent parliament, but to develop strong, empowered and independent democratic institutions.

To capture this broader timeframe and increase coordination between communities of practice and institutions more effectively, the JTF will propose the development of “Democracy Strengthening” approaches in future electoral programmes. Ultimately, our goal is to build social and institutional resilience to prevent conflict from starting in the first place.

The post An Ounce of Democracy appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Abdoulaye Mar Dieye is UN Assistant Secretary General and Director of UNDP’s Bureau for Policy and Programme Support

The post An Ounce of Democracy appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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Unfinished buildings in the Pope Francis neighbourhood, a modern social housing complex, and in the background the Villa 20 shantytown, where some 28,000 people live without basic services, in the south of Buenos Aires. Credit: Daniel Gutman/IPS

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Oct 24 2018 (IPS)

“We are the people who are excluded from the system,” says Rafael Rivero, sitting in his apartment in a new social housing complex next to one of the largest slums in Buenos Aires. The contrast sums up the complexity of the social reality in the Argentine capital.

Rivero, 66, and his wife, Felina Quita, 10 years older, lived for 38 years in Villa 20, an area of about 30 hectares in the south of the city, a crowded shantytown home to thousands of families who cannot afford regular housing. The neighbourhood has 27,990 inhabitants, according to the 2016 official census.

The plot next door belonged to the Federal Police, who for decades used it as a depot for crashed and abandoned vehicles, which turned it into a source of pollution."It is a big step forward that the authorities have taken the decision to urbanise and are allocating funds to do so. Although the work is progressing slowly, no one is talking about eradicating the villas anymore." -- Pablo Vitale

In 2009, more than a third of Villa 20’s children were found to have high concentrations of lead in their blood, and the courts ordered that the families be evicted.

That task had not yet been completed in 2014, when some 700 destitute families occupied the site. Several months later, in the midst of a social emergency, the occupants agreed to leave and the authorities promised to urbanise the area.

Today the land is the construction site for 90 four-story buildings being built by the city’s Housing Institute (IVC), the agency tasked with the monumental mission of solving the housing deficit of Buenos Aires.

In the Argentine capital proper, 233,000 people or 7.6 percent of the population, live in slums, known locally as villas. This does not count the population of the greater Buenos Aires or the vast low-income suburbs.

The construction project, named the Pope Francis Barrio, for the pope who comes from Argentina, consists of 1,671 apartments and was designed for families to move there from Villa 20. Families began to move in February, and 368 units have already been delivered. The IVC promises to complete the process next year.

“The house we had in the Villa was always getting flooded. Every time it rained, there was more water inside than outside,” said Rivero, who less than two months ago moved to his new home, which has an open plan kitchen, living room and dining room, and one bedroom, since the couple lives alone. There are units with up to four bedrooms, depending on the size of the families.

He’s happy, although he still doesn’t know how he’s going to pay for electricity, water, and municipal taxes. For now, he hasn’t received any of the bills for services, which in the last two years have caused enormous unrest in Argentine society, due to rate increases of up to 800 percent.

Felina Quita (L) and Rafael Rivero, in the kitchen-dining room of the apartment to which they moved in August, after living in a nearby shantytown for decades. They were chosen by the Buenos Aires authorities as beneficiaries of the social housing plan because their house was in an emergency situation due to frequent flooding. Credit: Daniel Gutman/IPS

Rivero told IPS in his home, where everything still smells new, that he came to Villa 20 more than 50 years ago, from the province of Jujuy, in northern Argentina.

“I was a boy and my aunt brought me. When the countryside was mechanised, there wasn’t so much work in sugar cane, many people were left without work and came to Buenos Aires. I’ve worked as a baker, a carpenter, a bricklayer, a waiter,” Rivero said. His wife is a retired domestic worker.

Juan Ignacio Maquieyra, president of the IVC, explained to IPS that “we are working towards the integration of shantytowns” into the city.

“Along with the construction of the Pope Francis neighborhood, we are urbanising Villa 20, which involves opening up streets, building infrastructure and leaving open spaces and courtyards, since one of the most serious problems is overcrowding and lack of ventilation,” he said.

The families chosen to move into the new apartments are those whose homes were in the worst condition or must be demolished to open up streets and urbanise.

Many local residents, however, point out that the construction works to urbanise the Villa are significantly slower than the construction of the apartment buildings.

“The city government did not comply with what it had promised. We are still waiting for the sanitation works. The storm drains mix with the sewers, and when it rains and overflows, we keep stepping on excrement,” Rubén Martínez, a 46-year-old man who grew up and still lives in the Villa, told IPS.

He is one of the members of the Mesa de Urbanización, a group taking part in the urbanisation process.

Martínez echoes what many others suspect: that the Pope Francis neighborhood was built to “hide” Villa 20 from view of another construction in the area – the Olympic Village, housing the athletes of the Youth Games that are being held this month in Buenos Aires.

The entrance to a block of completed buildings in the new Pope Francis neighbourhood, which will have 90 buildings and 1,671 apartments. The residents of the neighboring Villa 20 shantytown in the south of Buenos Aires, Argentina, have begun to be resettled in the new social housing units. Credit: Daniel Gutman/IPS

According to a survey presented by the government this year, there are 4,228 slums and shantytowns in Argentina, 45 percent of which emerged after the severe economic and social crisis of 2001-2002 which cut short the government of Fernando de la Rúa (1999-2001).

Three and a half million people live in the slums, out of a total population of 44 million.

Social conditions are once again growing worse today, as acknolwedged by President Mauricio Macri himself, who is implementing an austerity plan agreed in September with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The most complicated situation is found in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, where there are hundreds of villas and child poverty exceeds 50 percent.

This year, the government introduced in Congress a bill agreed with social organisations, to recognise the ownership of their land by the residents of the shantytowns. It was presented as a first step towards the recognition of more rights.

But it is only in Buenos Aires proper that the authorities have begun to take steps towards the integration of the villas.

“Slum-dwellers in Buenos Aires have been demanding urbanisation for decades, but only in recent years has the state recognised that right. The initial impulse came from court rulings,” Horacio Corti, ombudsman for the City of Buenos Aires, told IPS.

The Ombudsman’s Office defends the vulnerable in the local justice system, which in 2011, for example, ordered the urbanisation of the Rodrigo Bueno Villa, which is close to Puerto Madero, a posh waterfront neighborhood.

For Pablo Vitale, of the Civil Association for Equality and Justice (ACIJ), which for 15 years has been working on legal support for community organisations that fight for regularisation of the villas, “it is a big step forward that the authorities have taken the decision to urbanise and are allocating funds to do so. Although the work is progressing slowly, no one is talking about eradicating the villas anymore.”

Vitale, however, told IPS that the urbanisation plans have begun in villas that due to their location could be the most coveted by real estate interests.

“That could indicate that the objective is for the market to end up evicting people, driving out the people who can’t afford the higher costs involved in paying taxes and rates for public services that formality brings,” he warned.

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The post Buenos Aires Shantytowns, Caught Between Exclusion and Hope appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Zahid Hussain
Oct 24 2018 (Dawn, Pakistan)

Population explosion, though missing from the country’s policy discourse, presents one of the most serious threats to our national security.

There may not be a simple causal relationship between demography and security, but evidence shows that high population growth is a major destabilising factor in the least developed countries. There are many examples to show that tensions leading up to conflict may have been heightened by demographic pressures.

Zahid Hussain

Explore: Exploding population bomb

One of the highest population growth rates and a huge youth bulge have created an extremely dangerous situation for Pakistan. We could have used our demographic power to turn around the country’s economy, but with little investment in education and slow economic growth, the youth bulge is fast becoming a liability and serious threat to the country’s internal security.

The inability of the state to productively utilise a large young generation has already turned the country into a breeding ground for violent extremism, and could cause further social dislocation and conflict.

The Pakistani youth bulge: a ticking time bomb

This runaway population growth has created vast ranks of restless young men with few prospects and little to lose. Their frustrated ambitions can be an explosive force. More troubling is that there is no realisation about this lurking threat. A study conducted by Population Action International shows that about 80 per cent of the world’s civil conflicts since the 1970s have occurred in countries with young, fast-growing populations.

Pakistan is a stark example of that; thousands of people have been killed in militant and extremist violence, earning the country the dubious distinction of being one of the world’s most violent places.

Indeed, there are multiple domestic and international reasons that are responsible for the rising violent extremism in Pakistan. But it is not just religious fanaticism that drives young men to resort to violence. It also has much to do with the failure of the state to turn this young population into productive citizens.

Pakistan is sitting on a potential demographic disaster.

Pakistan is sitting on a potential demographic disaster with more than 120 million of its population under 25 years of age. This high number of young people is the face of today’s Pakistan. This new generation is also at the centre of an unresolved ideological struggle about what sort of country Pakistan should be. With an extremely low literacy rate and bleak job opportunities, the future prospects of the young generation are uncertain and dark.

*Take a look: To be young in Pakistan *

Growing frustration among the youth makes them vulnerable to prejudices and extremism. The gravity of the situation can be assessed by the fact that 32pc of our young generation is illiterate and the majority of the others are school dropouts. Enrolment rates are the lowest in South Asia. Pakistan’s spending on education is around 2pc of the GDP, about half that spent by India. The poor quality of education hardly equips the youth to face the challenges of the globalised world they live in, further pushing them towards isolation.

Furthermore, the widening social, cultural and economic divide has made the less advantaged youth receptive to extremism and violence. It has created a mindset that facilitates a militant agenda. Many studies have shown that there is a direct link between religious extremism and social and economic marginalisation.

The instability resulting from severe demographic pressures has led to civil war in many countries. Pakistan will not be too far away from such a situation if its present drift continues. In fact, we are already in the midst of one. The growing alienation of young generations and their feelings towards the government and state have been illustrated in some recent surveys. The youth’s despair is deep-seated in the present conditions.

With little or no education, as well as the lack of economic opportunities, they have not much to look forward to. Few are hopeful of getting jobs. The continuing downslide of the economy indicates that things are not getting better. Pakistan’s population has doubled over the past few decades.

The 2017 population census has shown that Pakistan has moved up the ladder, becoming the fifth most populous nation only behind India, China, the US and Indonesia. With a staggering growth rate of 2.4pc per annum, the country’s population is around 207m. That marks an increase of more than 57pc since the last population census in 1998, and is higher than what had been projected.

Pakistan needs an annual economic growth rate of at least 6pc to 7pc to absorb millions of people entering the job market every year. The population of the unemployed has drastically risen with the economic growth rate averaging around 3pc over the past decade, thus creating a dangerous situation

All this has left the country struggling to provide for a rapidly expanding populace. It is a disaster in the making. What is most worrisome is that this population explosion and its implications have drawn little attention from the political leadership.

Despite the gravity of the situation, the issue has hardly figured in the national discourse. The PTI government that says it is committed to human development appears to have completely ignored the challenge that presents the biggest threat to political stability and national security. Human development is not possible without dealing with the problem of high population growth.

It is a nightmare scenario fast unfolding. Firm and decisive action is needed to contain the population explosion before it is too late. The consequences of further delay will be disastrous. Economic and social problems faced by the country cannot be dealt with effectively unless population growth is brought under control. Other countries have done it, and it should not be difficult for us either. But what is needed is political will and a clear policy.

It may be late but the situation can still be salvaged with the government taking the issue more seriously. The exploding population bomb has put the country’s future in jeopardy. Is the government listening?

The writer is an author and journalist.

zhussain100@yahoo.com
Twitter: @hidhussain

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

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